by Mike Resnick
“But not in time to help Gwendolyn.”
“No, not in time to help Gwendolyn.”
Gradually, over the next few months, she became totally unaware that she even had Alzheimer’s. She no longer read, but she watched the television incessantly. She especially liked children’s shows and cartoons. I would come into the room and hear the 82-year-old woman I loved singing along with the Mickey Mouse Club. I had a feeling that if they still ran test patterns she could watch one for hours on end.
And then came the morning I had known would come: I was fixing her breakfast—some cereal she’d seen advertised on television—and she looked up at me, and I could tell that she no longer knew who I was. Oh, she wasn’t afraid of me, or even curious, but there was absolutely no spark of recognition.
The next day I moved her into a home that specialized in the senile dementias.
“I’m sorry, Paul,” said Dr. Castleman. “But it really is for the best. She needs professional care. You’ve lost weight, you’re not getting any sleep, and to be blunt, it no longer makes any difference to her who feeds and cleans and medicates her.”
“Well, it makes a difference to me,” I said angrily. “They treat her like an infant!”
“That’s what she’s become.”
“She’s been there two weeks, and I haven’t seen them try—really try—to communicate with her.”
“She has nothing to say, Paul.”
“It’s there,” I said. “It’s somewhere inside her brain.”
“Her brain isn’t what it once was,” said Castleman. “You have to face up to that.”
“I took her there too soon,” I said. “There must be a way to connect with her.”
“You’re an adult, and despite her appearance, she’s a four-year-old child,” said Castleman gently. “You no longer have anything in common.”
“We have a lifetime in common!” I snapped.
I couldn’t listen to any more, so I got up and stalked out of his office.
I decided that depending on Dr. Castleman was a dead end, and I began visiting other specialists. They all told me pretty much the same thing. One of them even showed me his lab, where they were doing all kinds of chemical experiments on the amyloid beta protein and a number of other things. It was encouraging, but nothing was going to happen fast enough to cure Gwendolyn.
Two or three times each day I picked up that pistol I’d bought and toyed with ending it, but I kept thinking: what if there’s a miracle—medical, religious, whatever kind? What if she becomes Gwendolyn again? She’ll be all alone with a bunch of senile old men and women, and I’ll have deserted her.
So I couldn’t kill myself, and I couldn’t help her, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch her. Somehow, somewhere, there had to be a way to connect with her, to communicate on the same level again. We’d faced some pretty terrible problems together—losing a son, suffering a miscarriage, watching each of our parents die in turn—and as long as we were together we were able to overcome them. This was just one more problem—and every problem is capable of solution.
I found the solution, too. It wasn’t where I expected, and it certainly wasn’t what I expected, but she was 82 years old and sinking fast, and I didn’t hesitate.
That’s where things stand this evening. Earlier today I bought this notebook, and this marks the end of my first entry.
Friday, June 22. I’d heard about the clinic while I was learning everything I could about the disease. The government outlawed it and shut it down, so they moved it lock, stock and barrel to Guatemala. It wasn’t much to look at, but then, I wasn’t expecting much. Just a miracle of a different sort.
They make no bones about what they anticipate if the experiment goes as planned. That’s why they only accept terminal patients—and because they have so few and are so desperate for volunteers, that’s also why they didn’t challenge me when I told them I had a slow-acting cancer. I signed a release that probably wouldn’t hold up in any court of law outside Guatemala; they now have my permission to do just about anything they want to me.
Saturday, June 23. So it begins. I thought they’d inject it into my spine, but instead they went through the carotid artery in my neck. Makes sense; it’s the conduit between the spine and the brain. If anything’s going to get the protein where it can do its work, that’s the ticket. I thought it would hurt like hell, but it’s just a little sore. Except for that, I don’t feel any different.
Wednesday, June 27. Fourth day in a row of tedious lectures explaining how some of us will die but a few may be saved and all humanity will benefit, or something like that. Now I have an inkling of how lab rats and guinea pigs feel. They’re not aware that they’re dying; and I guess before too long, we won’t be either.
Wednesday, July 3. After a week of having me play with the most idiotic puzzles, they tell me that I’ve lost six percent of my cognitive functions and that the condition is accelerating. It seems to please them no end. I’m not convinced; I think if they’d give me a little more time I’d do better on these damned tests. I mean, it’s been a long time since I was in school. I’m out of practice.
Sunday, July 7. You know, I think it’s working. I was reading down in the lounge, and for the longest time I couldn’t remember where my room was. Good. The faster it works, the better. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Tuesday, July 16. Today we got another talking-to. They say the shots are stronger and the symptons are appearing even faster than they’d hoped, and it’s almost time to try the anecdote. Anecdote. Is that the right word?
* * *
Friday, July 26. Boy am I lucky. At the last minute I remembered why I went there in the furst place. I wated until it was dark and snuck out. When I got to the airport I didnt have any money, but they asked to see my wallet and took out this plastic card and did something with it and said it was OK and gave me a ticket.
Saturday, july 27. I wrote down my address so I wouldnt forget, and boy am i lucky I did, because when I got a cab at the airporte I coudlnt’ remember what to tell him. We drove and we drove and finally I remembered I had wrote it down, but when we got home i didnt’ have a key. i started pounding on the door, but no one was there to let me in, and finally they came with a loud siren and took me somewere else. i cant stay long. I have to find gwendolyn before it is too late, but i cant remember what it wood be too late for.
Mundy, august. He says his name is Doctr Kasleman and that i know him, and he kept saying o paul why did you do this to yourself, and i told him i didn’t remember but i know I had a reason and it had something to do with gwendolyn. do you remember her he said. of course i do i said, she is my love and my life. I askt when can i see her & he said soon.
wensday. they gave me my own room, but i dont want my own room i want to be with gwendolyn. finaly they let me see her and she was as beutiful as ever and i wanted to hug her and kiss her but wen i walked up to her she started krying and the nurse took her away
it has been 8 daz since i rote here. or maybe 9. i keep forgeting to. today i saw a prety littl girl in the hall, with prety white hair. she reminds me of someone but i dont know who. tomorrow if i remember i will bring her a prezent
i saw the pretti gurl again today. i took a flower from a pot and gave it to her and she smiled and said thank you and we talkt alot and she said i am so glad we met & i am finaly happy. i said so am i. i think we are going to be great friends becauz we like each other and have so mucch in commmon. i askt her name and she couldnt remember, so i will call her gwendolyn. i think i nu someone called gwendolyn once a long time ago and it is a very pretti name for a very pretti new frend.
INTRODUCTION TO “ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE”
Robert J. Sawyer
Mike Resnick and I are the jurors for the annual Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award. Our goal is to spotlight an unjustly forgotten writer who had a significant impact on the science-fiction field. In 2007, we gave the award to Stanley G. Weinbaum, best known for his 1934 s
tory “A Martian Odyssey,” a wondrous tale that contains one of the most memorable dialog tags of all time as an engineer named Putz ejaculates his line.
When we recall Weinbaum’s story today, people immediately think of Tweel, the oddball ostrich-like Martian who befriends the human narrator. And there’s no doubt that later writers who dabble in alien biology and psychology owe Weinbaum an enormous debt, including Larry Niven, Robert L. Forward, and—a personal favorite of both Mike and myself—James White. But Niven’s Puppeteers, Forward’s Cheela, and White’s Cinrusskins were all created decades ago. Could one argue that Weinbaum was still directly influencing current science-fiction writing?
I hadn’t read Mike’s “All The Things You Are” back when we were debating just that, but it is recent, having first appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe late in 2006. And when I did read it, I immediately saw the influence of Stanley G. Weinbaum, seven decades after “A Martian Odyssey” was first published. In Weinbaum’s story, there’s a creature dubbed the dream-beast and it creates an image of a gorgeous woman the main character once knew named (I kid you not) Fancy Long.
Mike’s treatment of a similar notion is, of course, much more sophisticated and, frankly, written much more elegantly. But given his deep fondness for the classics of SF, I’m not at all surprised to find echoes from the field’s rich past in many of his stories, including the terrific one you’re about to read.
I always play music when I’m writing, and one day, while writing something else, I was playing some Frank Sinatra songs and up came “All the Things You Are,” and I started thinking, really thinking, about that title.
For example, what if you loved one of the things someone was, but had only a vague notion that your partner was a number of other things as well? And what if your partner loved you deeply and passionately and sincerely when she was with you, but couldn’t even remember you when you were briefly separated? I kept thinking of more and more “what ifs,” which is what science fiction is all about, and finally I wrote the story. It was a Hugo nominee for Best Novelette in 2007.
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
YOU WOULDN’T THINK THEY’D BE so dumb. Here they were, in the biggest spaceport in the country, with hundreds of holo cameras covering every inch of the place, and these three jerks actually think they’re going to get away with robbing the currency exchange.
Okay, so they got a couple of ceramic pistols past our security devices, and reassembled them in the men’s room, and all right, another one managed to sneak a couple of steak knives out of one of the restaurants, but hell, did they think we were just going to sit on our hands and let them waltz out with their loot?
I hadn’t seen much action during my four years in the space service, and after all those months of intensive training I’d almost been hoping for something like this. I’d been at OceanPort for three weeks, and was wondering why they even bothered with a live Security team, since their automated systems were so efficient that they discouraged anything worse than spitting on the floor.
Well, now I knew.
The men with the pistols were holding the crowd at bay, and the guy with the knife had grabbed a girl—not a woman, but a kid about twelve years old—and was holding the knife at her throat.
“Don’t move on them,” said the voice in my ear. “We’ve got to get the girl away from them unharmed, and we can’t have them shooting into the crowd.”
That was Captain Symmes. He was just spouting the routine and stating the platitudes: they’ve been identified, we can trace them wherever they go, they’re dead men walking, so don’t endanger any bystanders. If we don’t nail them here, we’ll nail them somewhere up the road. They have to eat, they have to sleep; we don’t. Whatever they think they’re going to escape in, we’ll sugar their gas, rupture their jets, fuck with their nuclear pile. (I kept waiting for him to say we’d also put tacks in their track shoes, but he didn’t.)
“Show yourselves, but don’t approach him,” said Symmes’ voice. “If they’re going to take a shot at someone, better us than the civilians.”
Well, it was better us if we remembered to put on our bulletproof long-johns. Most of us had, and the ones who hadn’t were too frightened to say so. An enraged Captain Symmes could be one hell of a lot more formidable than a ceramic bullet from a homemade pistol.
I stepped out from my station, and found myself about fifty yards from the trio. The crowd parted before them like the Red Sea before Moses, and they slowly made their way to the door. Then something caught my eye. It was a well-dressed middle-aged man, not fat or skinny but not especially well-built. While everyone else had moved away, he had simply turned his back and taken just a step or two.
Damn! I thought. It’s too bad you’re not one of us. You could just about reach the son of a bitch with the knife.
And even as the thought crossed my mind, the man spun around, chopped down on the knife-holder’s arm, and sent the weapon clattering to the floor. The little girl broke and ran toward the crowd, but I was watching the man who’d freed her. He didn’t have any weapons, and he sure didn’t handle his body like an athlete, but he was charging the two guys with the guns.
They turned and fired their weapons. He went down on one knee, his chest a bloody mess, then launched himself at the nearer one’s legs. The poor bastard never had a chance; he picked up four more bullets for his trouble.
Of course, the bad guys never had a chance, either. The second they concentrated on him, we all pulled our weapons and began firing—bullets, lasers, long-range tasers, you name it. All three were dead before they hit the floor.
I could see that Connie Neff was running over to the girl to make sure she was okay, so I raced up to the guy who’d taken all the bullets. He was in a bad way, but he was still breathing. Someone else had called for an ambulance. It arrived within two minutes, and they loaded him onto an airsled, shoved it in the back, and took off for Miami. I decided to ride with him. I mean, hell, he’d risked his life, probably lost it, to save that little girl. Someone who wasn’t a doctor ought to be there if he woke up.
OceanPort is eight miles off the Miami Coast, and the ambulance shuttle got us to the hospital in under a minute, though it took another forty seconds to set it down gently so as not to do any further damage to the patient.
I’d pulled his wallet and ID out and studied them. His name was Myron Seymour, he was 48 years old and—as far as I could tell—retired. Still had the serial number of the chip the military had embedded in him when he enlisted. The rest was equally unexceptional: normal height, normal weight, normal this, normal that.
He didn’t look much like a hero, but then, I’d never seen a real bonafide hero before, so I couldn’t actually say what they looked like.
“Good God,” said an orderly who’d come out to the ship to help move Seymour to the emergency room. “Him again!”
“He’s been here before?” I asked, surprised.
“Three times, maybe four,” was the reply. “I’ll swear the son of a bitch is trying to get himself killed.”
I was still puzzling over that remark when Seymour went into surgery. He came out, heavily sedated and in grave condition, three hours later.
“Is he going to make it?” I asked the same orderly, who was guiding the airsled into a recovery room.
“Not a chance,” he said.
“How much time has he got?”
He shrugged. “A day at the outside, probably less. Once we hook him up to all the machines we’ll have a better idea.”
“Any chance he’ll be able to talk?” I asked. “Or at least understand me if I talk to him?”
“You never know.”
“Mind if I stick around?”
He smiled. “You’re walking around with a badge, three lethal weapons that I can see, and probably a couple of more I can’t see. Who am I to tell you you can’t stay?”
I grabbed a sandwich in the hospital’s restaurant, called in to OceanPort to make sure I wasn’t needed right
away, then went up to the recovery room. Each of the patients was partitioned off from the others, and it took me a couple of minutes to find Seymour. He was lying there, a dozen machines monitoring all his vital functions, five tubes dripping fluids of various colors and consistencies into arms, an oxygen tube up his nostrils, bandages everywhere, and hints of blood starting to seep through the dressings.
I figured it was a waste of time, that he was never going to wake up again, but I stuck around for another hour, just to pay my respects to the man who’d saved a little girl’s life. Then, as I was about to leave, his eyelids flickered and opened. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him, so I pulled my chair over to the bed.
“Welcome back,” I said gently.
“Is she here?” he whispered.
“The girl you saved?” I said. “No, she’s fine. She’s with her parents.”
“No, not her,” he said. He could barely move his head, but he tried to look around the room. “She’s got to be here this time!”
“Who’s got to be here?” I asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“Where is she?” he rasped. “This time I’m dying. I can tell.”
“You’re going to be fine,” I lied.
“Not unless she gets here pretty damned soon.” He tried to sit up, but was too weak and sprawled back on the bed. “Is the door unlocked?”
“There isn’t any door,” I said. “You’re in the recovery ward.”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “Then where is she?”
“Whoever it is, she probably doesn’t know you’ve been wounded,” I said.
“She knows,” he said with absolute certainty.
“Was she at the spaceport?”
He shook his head weakly. “She wasn’t even on the planet,” he said.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to ask at the desk?”
“You can’t. She doesn’t have a name.”